Stocks skid as Covid concerns sour sentiment

Stocks skid as Covid concerns sour sentiment

By Siddhant Mishra

The markets continued their losing run on Thursday as Covid-related concerns from China and Japan continued to weigh on the investor sentiment.

“Markets succumbed to losses for a second straight session as rising Covid cases in China and Japan continued to dampen the sentiment, prompting investors to prune their exposure to metals, auto and realty shares. However, other Asian and European indices maintained their upward bias, which shows that valuations are quite high and the current global uncertainty and other risk factors do not justify higher valuations,” said Shrikant Chouhan, head of equity research (retail), Kotak Securities.

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UltraTech Cement led the gains in the Sensex pack, rising 0.84%. Infosys rose 0.75%, Asian Paints gained 0.65% and Kotak Mahindra Bank was up 0.63%.

M&M was the biggest laggard as the scrip fell 2.6%. Other major tech and banking stocks also closed in the red, along with the HDFC twins and Reliance Industries.

The BSE midcap and smallcap indices were down 0.77% and 1.83%, respectively. All sectoral indices, barring the teck, closed in the red. The BSE Teck gained 0.07%.

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A total of 705 stocks advanced on the BSE and 2,858 stocks declined.

UPL was the biggest loser among the Nifty stocks, down 3.5%. M&M, Bajaj Finserve, Eicher Motors and IndusInd Bank shed more than 2%. Sun Pharma gained the most at 0.95%, with SBI Life coming second at 0.86%.

The Bank Nifty was down 0.49%. PNB and Kotak Bank were the only banking stocks to end in the green. Bandhan Bank plunged close to 5% and IDFC First lost 3.5%.

DIIs continued being net buyers, pumping in ₹2,206.59 crore. FIIs, also, turned net buyers on Thursday as they bought equities worth ₹928.63 crore.

“Bears dominated for the second day in a row as rising Covid-19 cases in China weighed on the sentiment. The Nifty traded with a negative bias as market participants await the Q3 GDP revision from the US and the weekly US jobless claims data. The negative takeaway was that the Indian benchmark indices dropped despite no headlines of doom and gloom,” said Prashanth Tapse, senior VP (research), Mehta Equities.